Instructions for Authors

Special note: Authors should supply a graphical abstract (a feature figure) when the manuscript is submitted for publication. The abstract should summarize the contents of the paper in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership and for compilation of databases. Graphical abstract will be published online in the table of content. Carefully drawn figures that serve to illustrate the theme of the paper are desired. Authors may also provide appropriate text, not exceeding 30 words. The graphical abstract should be colored, and kept within an area of 12 cm (width) x 6 cm (height). Image should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi and line art 1200dpi. Note: Height of the image should be no more than half of the width. Graphical abstract can be provided in the format of jpg (preferred), PDF, Word, PowerPoint or png, when the manuscript is submitted for publication.

Please note that the final manuscript for publication (if accepted) must be provided in Microsoft Word, and we cannot accept Latex and Tex files at this time.

Note that the number of references must not exceed 200 for any type of articles including review. The publisher reserves the right to refuse to publish any article that is in breach of this requirement.

Submission

Categories of Contributions

Theranostics accepts original scientific and review articles. Letters commenting on previously published articles should be received within 1 year of the date of the referenced article’s publication. Case reports are not accepted.

Submission Checklist

A complete submission includes the following:

Cover letter to the editors

Full contact details of the corresponding author(s)

List of suggested referees

Manuscript file with embedded tables and figures

Supplementary files (optional)

Before submission, ensure that all submitted content adheres to the journal style guidelines.

Authors whose first language is not English are encouraged to ask a colleague to proofread the manuscript before submission.

Cover Letter

All manuscripts should be accompanied by a cover letter from the corresponding author. The cover letter should contain a statement that the manuscript has been seen and approved by all authors. If there are more than 10 authors, the specific contribution of each author must be substantiated in the cover letter. The cover letter should inform the editor of potential overlap with other material already published or submitted for publication and should provide a reference to or a copy of this material. The cover letter should also disclose any conflict of interest—financial or otherwise—that may directly or indirectly influence the content of the manuscript submitted. Finally, the cover letter should provide any additional information that may be helpful to the editor.

Manuscript File

Please embed figures and tables in the manuscript to become one single file for submission in Microsoft Word. Once submission is complete, the system will generate a manuscript ID and password sent to the corresponding author's contact email.

Manuscripts should adhere to the journal style detailed in this guideline to expedite the publishing process. Authors should pay careful attention to the required reference formatting and manuscript sections.

Supplementary Material

The initial submission allows one supplementary file to be submitted together with the main manuscript file and cover letter. If you have more than one supplementary file, you can submit the extra ones after the initial submission in the manuscript login page (under "Supplementary file" heading, click on the link "[Add More]").

Peer Review

Submitted manuscripts are reviewed for originality, significance, adequacy of documentation, composition, and adherence to these guidelines. However, editorial decisions are based not only on the technical merits of the work but also on factors such as priority for publication and relevance to the general readership of Theranostics. All manuscripts are judged in relation to other submissions currently under consideration.

Manuscripts that are judged to be of insufficient quality or unlikely to be competitive enough for publication will be rejected during initial screening. The remaining manuscripts go through a peer review process with two or more reviewers, and possible decisions are: accept as is, minor revision, major revision, de novo resubmission, rejection & transfer to Nanotheranostics, or reject.

Rebuttals to rejected manuscripts are strongly discouraged, and requests for resubmission of rejected manuscripts are generally not granted without significant demonstration of errors in the review or decision process. Most articles are rejected on grounds of insufficient priority or lack of relevance to Theranostics, not data quality or technical issues.

A note on plagiarism: There is a zero-tolerance policy towards plagiarism (including self-plagiarism) in our journals. Manuscripts are screened for plagiarism before, during, and after publication, and if found they will be rejected at any stage of processing.

Revisions

Authors should submit back their revisions within 1 month in the case of minor revision, 3 months in the case of major revision, and 4 months in the case of de novo resubmission. To submit a revision please sign in at the manuscript login page and use the submit revision button at the right side of the page. Manuscripts with significant results are typically reviewed and published at the highest priority.

Acceptance

Important note: After the manuscript is accepted, any inquiry should be addressed to our publishing team only. Please do not send any publishing-related inquiry to our editors or editor-in-chief as they are not involved in the process after a manuscript is accepted.

Publication Charges

Published articles of Theranostics are open access and full texts
appear in PubMed Central. This effectively removes the barriers for timely distribution of the articles
and ensures that they can be read by as many as possible. The journal charges a publication fee only if the manuscript is accepted for publication. There is no submission charge. Instruction for payment is sent during publication process and is also available in the manuscript login page after manuscript is accepted. Payment can be made by credit card or bank transfer. Publication fee is required to cover the cost of publication, and should be paid before copyediting and publication.

Research paper/
Review/
Others

$AUD 2500

* $AUD: Australian dollar

Reprints

Reprints can be ordered
after copyediting and publication (in manuscript login page). Reprints are now printed on glossy paper with cover page. They are made of highest quality suitable for
scientific corresponding.

Style Guide

General Remarks

Apply minimal additional formatting and stylization to the manuscript. During processing, all articles will be reformatted to Times New Roman font with left alignment. Authors whose first language is not English are encouraged to use Times New Roman font to avoid input of non-English characters.

Please note that supplementary material is not copy-edited. Authors are responsible for ensuring all supplementary material meets the scientific and style standards of the main text and figures.

Manuscript Format

All manuscripts should include the following sections, in order. All sections are mandatory unless designated "optional":

Title page

Abstract

Main text

Abbreviations

Acknowledgements (optional)

Contributions (optional)

Competing interests

References

Tables

Figures

Author biography (optional)

Title Page

Include in the title page the manuscript title, author’s name(s), affiliations, and corresponding author’s phone/fax number and/or email.

Title: Use sentence format; only the first word and proper nouns should be capitalized.

Authors: The list of authors and contributors should conform to the guidelines set out by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Provide full names of all authors.

Important: please write the first name and middle name before the surname, e.g., "Mike Johnson" (not "Johnson, Mike"; not "Johnson M."; not "M. Johnson").

Abstract: A structured abstract must be included with each original scientific manuscript with 4 clearly identifiable elements of content: rationale (goals of the investigation), methods (description of study subjects, experiments, and observational and analytic techniques), results (major findings), and principal conclusions. Except for the rationale, these sections should be preceded by headings (i.e., Methods, Results, and Conclusion). Abstracts should not contain citations to references.

Keywords: Submit 3-5 keywords with the abstract.

Graphical Abstract: Supply a graphical abstract (a feature figure) following the abstract. The graphical abstract should summarize the contents of the paper in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership and for compilation in databases. The graphical abstract will be published online in the table of contents. Carefully drawn figures that serve to illustrate the theme of the paper are desired. Authors may also provide appropriate text, not exceeding 30 words. The graphical abstract should be colored, and kept within an area of 12 cm (width) × 6 cm (height). Images should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi and line art 1200 dpi. Note: The height of the image should be no more than half of the width.

Main Text

Subsections: For original research articles, subdivide the main text into categories such as "Introduction", "Methods", "Results", "Discussion", "Conclusions". Results, discussion, and conclusion can be combined in one section and methods can come before or after the results. Please do not add numbers before subtitles. Write subtitles and headings in sentence case.

Citation of Tables and Figures: Tables and figures should be numbered consecutively using the format: Table 1, Table 2, Figure 1, Figure 2, etc. Parts of figures can be identified by A, B, C, D, etc. and cited as Figure 1A, Figure 1A-B, etc. Supplementary tables and figures should be identified with an "S": Table S1, Figure S1, etc. All tables and figures included with the manuscript must be cited in the main text.

Mathematical Formulas and Symbols: Simple mathematical formulas should be constructed using superscripts, subscripts, italics, and symbols in Microsoft Word. Please avoid using math equations in Microsoft Word whenever possible, as they have to be replaced by images in xml full text. To insert a symbol use Insert/Symbol/ in the Microsoft Word menu. Select symbols from the fonts "(normal text)" or "Symbol". Use "/" for "divide" or "over", e.g., 1/7, 5/(4+6). Use Symbol fonts for "±"; "≤" and "≥" (avoid underlining characters).

Scientific Units: Use the International System of Units (SI) to communicate numerical data. However, where the field standard differs from SI, use the most common unit in the field. For example, "mg/mL" and "mM" are acceptable non-SI units for concentration. Units of time (hours, minutes seconds) should be expressed as "h", "min", "s". A space must be added between all numerical values and their unit (e.g., 5 mL, 30 s, 37 °C), except for units %, $, ° (angular degrees), ′ (angular minutes), and ″ (angular seconds) (e.g., 25%, $10, 90°). Above all, communicate numerical data consistently throughout the manuscript and figures.

Ethics Committee Approval and Patient Consent: If human or animal data is included in the manuscript, prior approval and consent must be stated in the methods section.

For human studies, approval must be obtained from the institutional review board or equivalent ethics committee and written informed consent must be obtained from research subjects, unless this requirement is waived by the institutional review board or equivalent. For studies in the United States, compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is also required. Authors must also comply with the clinical trial registration statement from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, and the clinical trial registration number must be provided. If the manuscript contains photos or parts of photos of patients, informed consent from each patient should be obtained. Patient's identities and privacy should be carefully protected in the manuscript.

For animal studies, approval must be obtained from the appropriate animal care committee for compliance with the National Institutes of Health for use of laboratory animals or equivalent.

Competing Interests

Competing interests that might interfere with the objective presentation of the research findings contained in the manuscript must be declared. Examples of competing interests are ownership of stock in a company, commercial grants, board membership, etc. If there is no competing interest, please use the statement "The authors have declared that no competing interest exists".

References

References should be numbered consecutively starting from 1. One article per reference only (not 1a, 1b, 1c). References should be cited in the manuscript text by numbers, e.g. [1,2], and should be inserted before punctuation with a space between the preceding word and the citation (e.g., "… as was observed previously [4-7]."). Do not include personal communications, unpublished observations, conference abstracts or conference papers in references. Please do not format references as footnotes.

Please use the NLM Catalog (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals) to find the abbreviations of journals. Omit any "." in the journal abbreviations. It is not necessary to italicize or bold the title, journal name, or any other part of the references. For journals that do not use pagination, use the article number in place of the page range. Use sentence format for article titles (only capitalize the first word). Include names of the first six authors for multi-author articles. For articles with six or more authors, use "et al."

Tables

Insert tables as editable tables with minimal formatting. Do not insert tables as images.

Captions: Include a caption above each table. Number the captions with an Arabic numeral after the word "Table." Define all abbreviations used in one row at the bottom of the table.

Figures

Figures should clarify and augment the text. The selection of sharp, high quality figures is of paramount importance. The author will be required to correct or replace figures of inferior quality. Each submitted figure should clearly identify areas of interest with only enough surrounding white-space for orientation.

If possible, the figures should be submitted as the size they will appear when published so that no reduction is necessary. Figures should be either single-column format (published width, 8.5 cm; maximum submitted width, 11 cm), mid-size format (published width, 11.4 cm; maximum submitted width, 14 cm), or double-column format (published width, 17.4 cm; maximum submitted width, 22 cm).

The Arial font should be used for all figure text, and the size should be 8–12 points. Composite figures should be preassembled, with each figure part (e.g., A, B, C) lettered in 12-point Helvetica type in the upper left corner.

Acceptable resolution for digital figures is 300 dpi. Internet graphics are not acceptable under most circumstances because the 72 dpi resolution is too low for satisfactory reproduction. The file format must be .tiff, .eps, jpeg, .ppt, .doc, .docx, .png, or .pdf. If the .jpeg file format is used, the images must be of medium quality or better (quality setting of at least 6).

Legends: Include a legend below each figure. Legends should be concise and should not repeat the text. Number the legends with an Arabic numeral after the word "Figure." If a figure has more than one part, describe each part clearly. Any letter designations or arrows appearing on the figures should be identified and described fully. Abbreviations used in each figure should be defined in the legend in alphabetical order. For figures adapted from other articles, write "Adapted with permission from [REFERENCE], copyright YEAR PUBLISHER".

Author Biography

Authors now have the option to publish a biography together with their paper, with information such as MD/PhD degree, past and present positions, research interests, awards, etc. This increases the profile of the authors and is well received by international readers. See examples of author biographies on the website (e.g., http://www.thno.org/v02p0283.htm#coraddress).

Commercial advertising: Commercial advertising is not allowed in our journal.

For general information about preparing biomedical manuscripts, please consult the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication", available from http://www.icmje.org/.

English-Language Editing Services

Authors who would like to refine the use of English in their manuscripts might consider using the services of a professional English-language editing company. The following is a list of some companies that provide
English-language editing service:

Please be aware that an author's use of language editing services in no way guarantees that his or her submission will ultimately be accepted. Any arrangement an author enters into will be exclusively between the author and the particular company, and any costs incurred are the sole responsibility of the author.